maloki

Yesterday, I posted my first impressions on the Windows 7 Beta. Today, I’ve bumped into a great informative post by Tim Sneath with his 30 favorite secrets in Windows 7. Much thanks to Tim!

Back From Retirement

I was happy to find among them a way to bring back the old Quick Launch Toolbar! (#13)

• Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars / New Toolbar
• In the folder selection dialog, enter the following string and hit OK:
  %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
• Turn off the “lock the taskbar” setting, and right-click on the divider. Make sure that “Show text” and “Show title” are disabled and the view is set to “small icons”.
• Use the dividers to rearrange the toolbar ordering to choice, and then lock the taskbar again.

I just love the Quick Launch toolbar since it provides easy access the usual programs and folders I use without much clutter on the taskbar.

No Shaking Required

In my previous post, I also mentioned that the Aero Shake seemed impractical for non-touch/pen input. I guess Microsoft’s answer to that is the shortcut: [Win+Home]. (#3)

Hide and Go Peek

When on keyboard intensive tasks such as writing and coding, I hate to move my right hand and reach for the mouse. Good thing there’s [Win+Space] that reveals the Destkop like Aero Peek (#17), and [Win+1], [Win+2], …[Win+5] for quick access to the first 5 items on the taskbar (#11), and [Win+T] to shift focus to the taskbar (#21). (Note: [Win+T] works on Vista, too)

Still More?

These are just my favorite “secrets” from what Tim Sneath posted. I can’t help but wonder what Microsoft is intentionally hiding from us, especialy after reading this from the Windows 7 Beta 1 review on TechRadar UK:

The beta is feature complete; although there are “a couple of things that we’re holding back”, according to general manager Mike Ybarra.

… “all of the code is in the build, just the discoverability is not.” …

Very Interesting…

Filed under: Technology by Loki